Anthony Fauci and the facts about Covid-19, vaccines, and the lab-Leak theory

There has been a lot of noise anew about the origins of Covid-19, the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and whether the pandemic was real in the first place. This was precipitated by a recent United States (US) Senate hearing where Dr. Anthony Fauci, who became the public face of the US Covid-19 response, refused to answer questions from the floor.

Who is Dr. Anthony Fauci? Dr. Fauci is one of the most prolific and respected physician-scientists of the 20th century. He is an internist and infectious diseases physician by training and has over 1,000 scientific publications to his name. He led the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health for nearly 40 years, and he was responsible for many important milestones in medicine.

Among his many accomplishments are the discovery of effective treatment for HIV and the provision of life-saving antiretroviral treatment for Africa and the rest of the world. Dr. Fauci is also one of the long-time editors of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, the definitive textbook for internists all over the world.

As an infectious disease physician, a lot of the knowledge I use every day to diagnose and treat patients is, in some measure, connected to the work of Dr. Fauci and his collaborators. I have seen him speak many times at our international conferences. His breadth of knowledge is astounding, and he is a very careful scientist who gives well-considered opinions.

He has served seven American presidents and has been a non-partisan government worker throughout his career. During the pandemic, then President Donald Trump tapped him to oversee the pandemic response, and he spearheaded the unprecedented rapid development of the Covid-19 vaccines which have since saved millions of lives.

Unfortunately, he ran afoul of antivaxxers and powerful anti-science interests. In addition, he was not afraid to address scientifically inaccurate statements, which led to many personal attacks from individuals showing support for the administration, including at the most recent senate hearing.

One of the recurring charges which are hurled against Dr. Fauci is that he was somehow involved in funding the Wuhan laboratory that conspiracy theorists are saying created the SARS-CoV-2 virus which inadvertently leaked from that facility. There is no hard evidence whatsoever to support this claim. What has been alleged is that there were possible gain-of-function studies—virologic experiments where scientists can genetically manipulate a virus to make it deadlier and spread faster in the human population for use as a bioweapon—involving an organization (EcoHealth) that was funded by Dr. Fauci’s institute, which then collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Technology in China.

However, it turns out that the studies that were being conducted in Wuhan did not meet the definition of gain of function studies, and the viruses being studied were so different from SARS-CoV-2 that there was no way these viruses could have been the source of the pandemic.

Another supposed “smoking gun” is an email from Dr. Fauci to one of his colleagues expressed concern that one of the mutations on SARS-CoV-2 could have been laboratory manipulated and that this should be investigated by evolutionary biology experts. However, those experts independently came to the conclusion that the said mutation is more likely to have arisen naturally, a finding which was published in a high-level scientific journal, and which Dr. Fauci accepted as a scientifically sound explanation.

I have written in a previous column why a laboratory leak is unlikely to have been the source of the pandemic, and these facts remain true to this day.

As for the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, there is a very large and growing body of evidence that the Covid-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives. The most conservative models show at least 2.5 million lives were saved, with some estimates going as high as 20 million lives saved depending on which parameters are used.

The randomized controlled trials behind the most effective vaccines have shown that these are safe and effective, and updated vaccines continue to be approved and rolled out for high-risk populations. While some vaccines have been found to possibly increase the risk of blood clots or myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), these risks are well-defined and only affect a very small number of people, far outweighing the complications one can get from an actual Covid-19 infection in an unvaccinated person.

Finally, the conspiracy theory that the pandemic was “made up” is so preposterous given overwhelming evidence of an actual virus and millions of confirmed cases worldwide. Moreover, there are many inconsistencies in the arguments of the proponents of these theories. For instance, if the pandemic was not real, then why do they insist that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a laboratory?

Perhaps the saddest thing about what is happening to Dr. Fauci is that many of the people who are vilifying him at this moment have been helped by his work in some form or another. In some cases, Dr. Fauci helped take care of them during the pandemic and ensured that they got proper medical advice.

During the last Ebola outbreak in 2014, where a few cases made it to the US, Dr. Fauci, at great personal risk, was one of the physicians who put on PPE to directly care for these patients. There is an ongoing Ebola outbreak in Africa, the second largest in history so far, and it has not been contained.

The withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization has resulted in fewer resources for the Ebola response, crippling containment efforts. If Ebola once again reaches the US, I am sure that Dr. Fauci would be among the first to offer his services despite everything that has been done to him. If this is how we treat our heroes, then there may not be anyone left to help us when the next pandemic hits. — Dr. Edsel Salvana